Perosus dominandi
by XthatXfragileXcapricornX
Summary: Remus Lupin can only blame himself at this point, but at the peak of despair finds himself at the mercy of the one man he may hate more than himself. POA era.


At this point, there was nothing he could do but blame himself.

He had known the full moon was coming. Every night the cursed thing shined down through the small window in his new room, burned through his eyelids and banished sleep, but this month it was easier to forget. What with teaching and seeing Harry and simply beingin the company of people who were neither scared nor disgusted with him had made it simple to close his eyes. For the first time in years, he felt human. He had not felt so since he had left Hogwarts, but now that he was back he could almost feel whole. So he had delayed speaking to Dumbledore about what to do when the time came. He had closed his eyes to the swelling moon and pretended he was nothing less than a man, for so brief a time.

Now, he was paying the price of forgetting in full.

Remus Lupin stifled a scream as he was rocked with a torturous surge of power. Wishful thinking be damned, his body would spend the better part of a day preparing itself for the gruesome transformation from man to beast. First came the nausea and vertigo. The shaking started soon after, accompanied by fever and disorientation. He had known and felt the symptoms for years, but he continued listing them in his mind anyway, as if this repetition could change the fact he wouldn't know who or where he was in a few hours.

He had to get away from here. How could see know this so well and still be lying on the rough stones of his classroom floor? He had tried to get away…he had felt the sickness coming over him and made to go to the Whomping Willow. He would take solace in his teenage hideout and transform in isolation. He had thought so clearly, the plan had been there. He remembered gathering a cloak, moving towards the door, then nothing but this. How had he come to be lying here? Vertigo, disorientation…he knew the floor to be of very cold stone, but he felt so hot he wondered how his limbs had avoided bursting into flame…fever. Shaking. Nausea. Vertigo. Disorientation. Fear, in its most raw and animal form. How much did you have to lose when your worst fear was yourself?

_Master yourself, Lupin._ That phrase had gotten him through this before. Perhaps if he inched himself forward he could reach his wand, lying barely beyond grasp. Did he drop it when he fell? He couldn't recall. Shaking, vertigo…he stretched a trembling hand forward, but with this fleeting movement came a pain so strong this time he could not stop himself from yelling aloud. He eyes snapped shut and he attempted to stop screaming, but the flame flared again and he could do nothing against it. He could not think beyond this endless moment…he was blazing, bursting, his body must be wasted from it…he could comprehend nothing. He heard tortured, desperate breaths from somewhere beyond himself, a low cry, pain made solid and verbal, and knew he could not stop it, any of it.

"_Silencio!" _

Remus's eyes opened, but he couldn't get them to focus through the burning. All he saw was the faint and darkened outline of a man before him, further blurred by panic. He was done. His secret was out. He had not even been here a fortnight, and now he was finished.

"Do you know how fortunate you are?"

By this time, the pallid face and hooked nose had swum into view, framed by lank hair and twisted into an expression somewhere between concern and rage, but Lupin would know that sneering tone of voice anywhere. Even in the torment of transformation, he struggled between deep guilt and an anger that was not truly his in this man's presence.

"Severus…" he gasped, but no sound came out. Snape was kneeling next to him, wand still pointed at his throat. The silencing charm had stopped his screams but would now prevent him from explaining the danger they were both in at the moment.

"If it had not been I that found you first, heard your screams… You ought to be more careful. What if it had been a student, Lupin? What then? Perhaps your beloved Potter?" The sneer in his voice became more pronounced as he saw Lupin's breath stop short in his chest. "Yes…the splitting image of his father…what a tragedy it would be if he was murdered by the last living friend of his dead father."

"How…do you know…" Lupin mouthed the words, knowing if he had a voice it would be hoarse at this point, with disbelief and fear.

"How do I know?" Snape's face became emotionless. "Our headmaster thought it fitting I become aware of your…condition. He wished me to brew the Wolfsbane potion for you." As the rest of the room came into sharper focus, Remus saw a tall, faintly smoking goblet in Snape's other hand. His voice grew softer. "It appears I am too late, however."

Remus couldn't react. There would be a time and place to think about what he had just heard but this was not it. What mattered now was getting out and quickly.

He attempted to gesture, but his hands merely fluttered weakly and hit the floor.

"Shrieking…shack…" he mouthed. "…safe…"

An extremely dark look passed over Snape's face before he returned to impassivity. There had been trouble for Snape there once, Lupin recalled too late, but they had been boys…so young…he was finding it hard to remember…the fever was slowly, steadily taking what it had come for.

"Shrieking shack, you said?" Lupin's unstable focus flitted back to Snape, who was still kneeling beside him. "No. Although you are far more familiar with the place than I" –the sneer had disappeared from his voice… "I fear you are not to leave the grounds, again on Dumbledore's orders."

Before Lupin could ask, Snape spoke swiftly. "He's traveling, Remus. I will be attempting to get in contact with him, but seeing as his owl to me was a week or so late, my word may not travel for a while." His voice was getting softer and softer, or perhaps Lupin was falling farther into his personal madness. "So we are left on our own." He stood.

Remus looked up helplessly at him, as he took a view steps back and returned his gaze. Snape's face was impassive, but he knew they were thinking the same thing. It would be all too easy for Snape to leave him here, in silent agony, until he was again discovered or the transformation was complete. Then he would rampage through the grounds, and would either kill or be killed in the process. Dumbledore would never know Snape was the last one to see him, Lupin, before bloodlust set in. The secret would die with him.

There was nothing Lupin could do but lay at the other man's feet. The last surge had left him weaker than he could remember being since the initial bite as a child, and he felt the weight of this pressing down on his entire body.

Was Snape enjoying this? He expected Severus would be reveling in his weakness, but his expression was grim and fading fast in Lupin's view. 

"Remus…" The voice was coming from somewhere far away from him. "Lupin!" There were hands on his shoulders, cold hands, shaking him, but those could not be near his body for he was not….

_If he left me, if my human self dies here, it's only fitting. It's less than I deserve, for what I've done. _

That was the last conscious thought of Remus Lupin as he fell away from his despair and into darkness.

\


End file.
